Dear Interceptor
by cccpirate
Summary: Stark learns things about Lilynet. Lilynet learns that Stark is an ass. Aaroniero gets a fishbowl. [Oneshot, written for June's flashfic challenge on Livejournal. Contains spoilers up to the current arc]


**Title:** Dear Interceptor  
**Author's name:** **cccpirate** / Karlie  
**Requester's name:** **renwren** -- requested here!  
**Pairing:** Stark/Lilynet, slightly implied Gin+/Rukia and Lilynet+/D-Roy, lots of Lulu-chan mentions.  
**Rating:** PG.  
**Word-count:** 3, 519  
**Squicks/spoilers:** Set somewhere between part 269 and current events. Obviously, this is probably going to be au in a few weeks.

**Summary:** Stark learns a few things about himself and his Fracción. Lilynet learns that Stark is an ass. Aaroniero gets a fishbowl.

_"Is that okay?"_

"What do you expect me to do about it?"

By nature, Stark did not embody all what one would expect from somebody rated as the Primera Espada. True, he was leagues more powerful than the majority of his peers; could quite possibly give all of them yet _another_ hole without even breaking a sweat, but he took little interest in political affairs and matters that were not specifically his problem – as did the two others below him, which was generally why Aizen-sama delegated work to Ulquiorra, who had been studious in his lifetime as well as having been a particularly conniving Hollow. 

He also took more of an interest in sleeping than in neutralising the incursion into Las Noches – in fact, he would not have noticed the (strong, but nothing worth his bother. The lower ranks could handle it – he would have been surprised if anybody higher than Quinta needed to be bothered) invading reiatsu had Lilynet not woken him up by making air-raid-siren noises, and once he had assured himself that the incursion was beneath him, he had pushed Lilynet off and gone back to sleep.

This, he was relatively quick to point out, was due to the fact that it was his transformation that had first cracked the Hougyoku; his narcolepsy was a side-effect, whereas there was _no_ excuse for Yammy. 

("The hell're you tryin' to say with that?" Yammy had snarled, slamming a meaty fist onto the table, but everyone present had agreed with Stark, and therefore they ignored him.)

And he was bitch to his Fracción.

Noitora took far too much delight in pointing out the fact that Lilynet had been Número 69 before Stark had employed her, but shutting him up took too much effort, and it was really too much of a bother considering that Noitora would, undoubtedly, impose upon Stark's valuable sleeping time for a week afterward trying to impress on how Noitora was still stronger (he wasn't), worthier of the position of Primera (debatable), and one day he would prove it (he wouldn't) and Tesla was better in the sack than he imagined Lilynet to be (it was far easier to ignore Noitora than to worry about what sort of rumours were hurtling around Las Noches). Lilynet was more of an unruly teenager than any sort of lover, anyway; her knee had a certain knack of pressing into his exact weak-spot and her nails had a superb ability of digging into the dip between the muscles of his arms. 

"Do _something_, obviously!"

"Such as?"

"Go and _help_? C'mon, get up!"

Lilynet's nose crinkled dangerously. Stark ignored it – it was only a minor warning sign, after all. "Aaroniero is an Espada. If he can't defeat his enemy, then he deserves to be defeated. Now will you go away?"

"No! Get UP!"

He counted to three. Then he rolled anyway. Lilynet toppled off with a high-pitched squeal and a thud and a "Jerk!" and his hand caught her booted ankle as she aimed it towards his crotch. The petulant reiatsu came off of her in waves.

Wonderful.

"You're not going to leave me alone, are you?"

"NO." She wriggled her foot. "Even if Aaroniero did get beat, Aizen-sama'll just demote 'em. We're bein' _invaded_. They took down Lulu-chan! We need all the men we can get! C'mon c'mon c'mooooooon!"

Stark shot her a flat look. "You did not just call the Novena Espada 'Lulu-chan'."

"Hey, Novena like _me_."

If Lilynet had had a tail, Stark was perfectly sure that right about now it would be thumping impatiently behind her like an angry little terrier. "I'm sure Aizen-sama has some sort of plan," he said. "And why can't you go by yourself?"

She glanced guiltily to the side. Of course. If the incursion had breached past Tres Cifras, and the Novena Espada had been defeated, a mere Fracción had no business going around unaccompanied. _Thump-thump-thump_ went the tail. Clearly, there would be no sleep now. He glanced at her wearily. Lilynet cocked her head expectantly. "I could have you killed, you know," he muttered, half-fondly.

"Yeah," Lilynet replied, flashing him a bright grin that did not quite reach past her lips. "You could also do it yourself, but you're a lazy bum, SO. I'll go get the bowl, shall I?"

--

Aaroniero Arlueri's tower was not a place Stark had ever visited – it was much too far to walk, and he had just generally had no reason to go there – on the rare occasions he had needed to send a message to the other Espada, he had simply sent Lilynet, and when Aaroniero had needed to contact someone, he had used his abilities. Shielding his eyes from Aizen's sunlight, he ducked instinctively through the doorway before noting that it had been lengthened to accommodate for the glass tube. Little things that he hadn't noticed yet somehow gave him just a little inkling of more respect to Aizen-sama; yes, they were at war, and yes, they all were soldiers, but even a general could show some compassion to his army of misfits.

His smirk of approval lasted exactly two seconds before Lilynet, a flash of skin and white and black and horns in the side of his vision, grit her teeth against the residual reiatsu that leaked out of every shadow and pelted across to the fallen Espada, fishbowl clutched under one arm and a bottle of red fluid in her free hand. Stark followed slowly, toeing a piece of Glotonería out of his way. It fizzed, as though unbearably hot, and then disintegrated, reforming as a piece of Aaroniero's blade some way across the room. 

If ever there was evidence of a resounding defeat, there it was.

The glass had shattered somewhat spectacularly and crunched underfoot as Stark crossed the room, and the top half of Aaroniero's robes had taken on a vague pink colour from the fluid that had puddled on the floor, mottling in the sunlight. So that was how. Stark cast a glance to the gaping crater in the tower wall. Tch. Careless. He had never had very much respect for Aaroniero, but what little there was between comrades was gone now.

_Careless_. Such a waste, after everything Aizen had given them, falling like this.

"What the hell!" Lilynet yelled, picking a piece of face up gently. "Who the hell stabs somebody in the face?!"

"Hm?" Possibly the cushions were salvageable...

"IN. THE. FACE. Who DOES that?!"

"Somebody who is given an opening, obviously."

"...That is not funny. In the FACE, Stark, I mean, come ON!"

Definitely salvageable.

"Hey! Hey, I'm talkin' to you!"

The black lump on the ground, however... Stark reached out, prodded it in the side with a booted toe. It shuddered, took in a strained, high-pitched breath, then fell still again. Something glinted around it and Stark raised an eyebrow in surprise at the amount of blood from something so small. "The shinigami is still alive," he pointed out, toeing the ragged hilt of its' zanpakutou away from its' hand.

"So?"

"So it killed Aaroniero—"

"He's not dead!"

"..._defeated_ Aaroniero."

Lilynet shrugged, tossing the bottle aside and gently picking up pieces of head and setting them in the fishbowl. Stark frowned. "Aizen-sama'll fix him, right?"

"I don't know. Maybe you can get Octova to clone another one; he seems to enjoy doing that. What should we do with the shinigami?"

Lilynet shrugged disinterestedly. "Iunno. Eat it?"

"It's hardly powerful enough for that." He regarded the lump again, before stooping and scooping it up. "She," he stated, weighting her in the crook of his elbows. "I'll ask Ichimaru-sama. We have one prisoner already. One more can't hurt."

Muttering, Lilynet hefted the fishbowl. One half of Aaroniero's second face clunked against the side dully. "You shouldn't worry," he muttered. "Szayel is winning. Can't you feel it? Aaroniero was just careless."

"They're stronger'n they look," Lilynet growled.

It was too much effort to correct Lilynet into the past tense. Instead, Stark said, "They. Of course. Do you have all the pieces? The shinigami is bleeding on me." 

Lilynet sniffled, an odd sound that echoed around the former Novena's strange architecture, and dropped a final piece of skull into the bowl with a loud 'plop'. "Yeah, I got all the pieces."

"Then we'll go. You can hand the bowl to one of Szayel's Fracción on the way back." Lilynet muttered again. "I don't care that you think they're creepy."

"Aw come ON—"

"She's still bleeding on me, Lilynet."

"Yeah, well, you need to quit wearing the same stuff you sleep in anyway," she replied resentfully, cradling the bowl in both arms. "They stink."

Stark scowled at that, but didn't reply – it wasn't worth the effort. If Lilynet wanted to be emotional, there was very little he could do to snap her out of it until she found something else to distract herself with, though lately he had noticed that Lilynet had been decidedly over-emotional and over-affectionate (if affection was the right sort of word for somebody who thought it was perfectly appropriate to stick her sleeping master's hand into a bowl of warm water "just to test"), and part of him was idly concerned. He had not expected his Fracción to be so affected by the idea of war, given that the Números were, in the grand scheme of things, the front-line troops. Cannon-fodder, if you will.

The thought of small little Lilynet on the front line was sobering.

Perhaps Lilynet had been spoiled since she became his servant? Irritated, he shook his head. That wasn't the case. Lilynet was treated no differently than he treated any of the other Fracción, though on retrospect he knew he gave her a little more forgiveness than she deserved.

The shinigami in his arms moved slightly, a pained, bloody moan bubbling onto his sleeve. He eyed it with disgust. "Come on, Lilynet," he threw over his shoulder, and led the way out of the tower.

--

Ichimaru met them as they passed the control-room and took the shinigami off of them with a gleefully gentle tone to his voice that almost unnerved Stark, and a reverence in his hands as he took hold the unconscious woman that gave Stark a weight of dislike in his stomach. Another Fracción was sent to the Octova Espada's quarters with the bowl of Aaroniero, but all signs indicated that he was engaged at present, and nobody was stupid enough to want to bother him. Lilynet made an excuse about going to change and left, flipping her bobbed hair over her shoulders as she did.

Ichimaru looked after her, thin lips curving into a curious smirk. "Hmm?" he prompted. Stark sighed.

"She's been temperamental ever since the breach into Tres Cifras."

"Aw, she's just worried about you. You know what girls're like, right, Primera-han?"

"Mm."

"And it's not like you two got a normal relationship, either."

"...just what is that supposed to mean?"

"Well," Ichimaru said, smiling as he folded the shinigami's hands over the gaping wound in her stomach. "Lily's only job here's you. And you two're awfully close."

"Look, just because I don't use my Fracción for target practise—"

"Yammy got disciplined for that. An' Lily's not exactly a sight for sore eyes."

Bristling, Stark turned on his heel. "She's my Fracción, not my lover, Ichimaru. Shouldn't you see to the shinigami?"

"On my way, Primera."

--

Stark washed himself and changed his clothes not because of Lilynet's insistence, but more the thick, browning splotches of blood from the shinigami, and then flopped onto his cushions, unable to work out why Lilynet's mood had irritated him so much. In the three months since she had been his Fracción, she had gone from being mildly irritating to constantly there to now, constantly checking and pouncing and he-couldn't-remember-what.

Lilynet's birth had not been anything worth mentioning – she had been produced in a batch of ten, some had been Gillian, some, like Lilynet, were not. They had been blessed with the Hougyoku systematically, and two had died during the process – all normal. Lilynet had hatched, loudly given her name, and then thrown up over her shell – again, perfectly normal, the birthing process was traumatic, and everyone had had different reactions to it: Lilynet's had been to vomit. Ulquiorra's had been to pick the pieces of his shell up and rearrange them into a neat, tidy pile. Yammy had simply crushed the pieces into dust and then tried to kill an attendant. It had been planned for her, as with most of the Números, to join the assault teams, but by the time her zanpakutou had formed, it had turned out to be a small, thin dagger that was easily concealed in one of her long boots but was of absolutely no use in battle, and her aim with a _cero_ was decidedly off, and so she had been sent to become a Fracción. 

When he had picked her, it was more for the fact she was on her tiptoes, hand up in the air and bouncing on her toes in an 'ooh! me! pick me!' gesture rather than any comment on her skills. He hadn't particularly wanted a Fracción, but supposed that, having heard what had happened to Yammy's last, could save somebody from a certainly messy fate and he could order the Fracción to leave him alone when he wanted to sleep.

Well. He got half. 

Lilynet avoided Yammy like one avoided wild bears in the woods, though she seemed to hero-worship the Novena Espada and hated Aizen's twin Fracción, and until the second raid had – to Stark's knowledge, at least – had some sort of friendship with D-Roy. She also had an irreverence that was, perhaps, dangerous: when D-Roy and the other four Números had been killed Stark had given her a direct order that she was _not_ to confront Sexta, and she was _certainly_ not going to approach Tousen-sama about it, either, and he had still caught her tiptoeing out of his quarters when she thought he was asleep.

--

He awoke later that night – which was normal, given his intermittent sleep-pattern – to the feeling of somebody else in his room – which was not normal. He had resorted at one point to having his door locked by spells, but Aizen-sama had only permitted locking spells to be performed at night after Szayel had locked himself into his own tower and refused to come out until he had perfected all of his Fracción, and no spell had deterred Lilynet. When she had found herself locked out, she had stood outside of his room and yelled – loud enough for Grimmjow to smirk at him at the meeting later that morning – that Stark sucked his thumb and hugged his pillow and talked in his sleep.

("Dunno how you put up with her," Grimmjow had muttered slyly, his chin propped in his hand as they had waited for Aizen.

"Neither do I," Stark had responded.

The other Espada had shrugged. "So kill her. S'what I'd do."

"..."

"What! She's annoying as shit—"

"And she is none of your concern," Stark had interrupted, flatly. Grimmjow had bit the inside of his cheek, made some impertinent comment that he had probably learned from Noitora regarding the nature of his and Lilynet's relationship and turned back to his tea, aiming a kick at the attendant as he did so.)

He narrowed his eyes, reaching for a clean shirt as he sat up, trying to place the reiatsu; weak, decidedly female, and he would have bet it was Lilynet's, except Lilynet was always asleep by this hour, in a room she shared with Halibel's underling, and she was at least polite enough to give him the night-time in which to sleep.

It was Lilynet, however.

She slept sitting up, half-sprawled against the wall next to his door with her slim dagger zanpakutou unsheathed and held loosely in her lap. Her hair fell awkwardly over her face and the remainder of her mask and for a brief moment, Stark was fooled into thinking that Lilynet was absolutely harmless. Then her nose wrinkled and she shifted, clearly uncomfortable, and he took a pre-emptive step back. He had never woken his Fracción up before (indeed, if he hadn't seen her late for breakfast one morning still in her pyjamas he would have assumed that she _never_ slept), and part of him could appreciate the irony. Either way, he assumed it would result in him catching a beating, much like whenever she woke him up.

Like with the shinigami earlier, he poked her with a toe.

"Mrph. Wha?"

"What the hell are you doing? Go to bed, Lilynet."

"Don' wanna." She cracked her visible eye open and glared at him blearily, spitting hair out of her mouth. "You always sleep. What're you gonna do if they come find you when you're sleepin'?" Wriggling, she aimed a sleepy kick to his knee, which he dodged easily. "You're gonna lie on your ass, _still asleep_, and then they're gonna—"

"You're being foolish."

"Don't call me that!"

"You are, though!" He watched her re-sheathe her blade, and then reached down and gathered her up. "To bed, Lilynet."

"Quit it! I'm savin' your ass here!"

"I don't need your protection."

Lilynet stopped struggling for a moment, looking down, and for a moment, Stark wondered if maybe she had been hurt by that remark, even though it was perfectly truthful, but Stark had never claimed to understand women, especially not those as temperamental as Lilynet. Then she slackened her shoulders and went limp in his arms. "Put me down."

He sighed. "Now you're sulking."

"No I'm not! GOD, Stark, why're you such an ASS about this? Put me the hell down!"

He did.

"I DIDN'T MEAN DROP ME. Just... ugh, goaway."

"You're in my rooms, Lilynet."

"...FINE." She aimed a kick at his ankle and turned for the door. "I'll sit outside!"

He shot her back a bored look, before he picked her up, retraced his steps and dumped her unceremoniously onto the cushion pile. She shrieked, her hands flying to her vest top to make sure it had stayed in place. "You'll sleep."

"You don't get it!" she snapped, her fists balling up in fury. "You're okay with the fact they are _in our building_ killing our guys?! What if you're next? These're the guys who messed Sexta-sama up, and Didi got killed by them and—"

Didi? He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, dropping to the pillows himself and nudging Lilynet to prompt her to move.

"—they're _here_. I don't wanna DIE, Stark."

"Don't be an idiot."

"I'm serious!"

"You're just a Número, Lilynet. Nobody will be coming here to try to kill _you_."

He supposed he deserved the irritated huff and the swipe at his chest, but. 

"But they'll come t'kill everyone else. And then when they do and there's just us Números left, then what?"

"They'll buy you a pony." She kicked him in the side, angrily. He tensed the muscles there to pre-empt the blow, then glared dryly at her. "Don't do that again. What makes you think 'everyone else' will die, anyway?"

Lilynet said nothing, but she didn't have to.

"D-Roy was weak. Aaroniero was a Gillian—"

"He was stronger'n normal!"

"—who from all accounts including his own left himself wide open against a foe he should have pre-empted—"

"She used dirty tricks!"

"—and was killed because of his own ego. Not through any degree of skill on the shinigami's part."

She still glared. Stark sighed. "Lilynet, this may or may not serve you in the future but usually when you've just ran your enemy through and they're still alive and, more importantly, _still armed_, you do not bring them anywhere near your face."

"...yeah, I know. Doesn't mean—"

"I know. Now sleep, Lilynet."

"Don' wanna."

"_Lirio_," he muttered, and rested his chin on top of her head, mindful of her horns. "Sleep."

For a moment, she obeyed, pressing her feet against his knees and curling her hands into his shirt. Then, "Don' wanna see you _die_, Stark..."

"We're already dead, Lilynet."

She beat his chest with a fist once, then buried her face into his neck. "You know what I mean, asshole."

"Go to sleep."

She tensed, then burrowed her nose into his throat. He waited, then, adjusting one or two cushions to stop her from toppling off of the pillow-pile, and did not move again until he felt her breathing, slow and even, down his neck and past his mask. He frowned. Las Noches was the safest place for all of them, at least until Aizen was victorious, though, he thought guiltily as Lilynet curled closer, perhaps Ichimaru was right. The Fracción were assigned with the sole purpose of service; it was perfectly acceptable for Lilynet to be concerned for his safety, even if it was entirely illogical.

"Idiot," he muttered eventually, his bare fingers idly brushing the rough join of her mask to her face. "As if you would be anything but safe around me."

– end –


End file.
